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CONSERVATIVE THINKING THROUGH THE AGES

Steve Bakke April 7, 2021

Sometimes, to get “grounded” while working through frustrating upside-down realities of politics in 2021, it helps to go back to our Founding Documents for wisdom. And it helps to recall some wise quotes by conservatives spanning our nation’s history. I enjoy reading through these from time to time.

Our Form of Government • The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are……staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people. – George Washington • Here, sir, the people govern. – Alexander Hamilton • The Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. – Daniel Webster

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• Government’s first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives. – Ronald Reagan • The power to do good is also the power to do harm. – Milton Friedman

American Exceptionalism • We are a nation that has a government – not the other way around……Our government has no power except that granted it by the people. – Ronald Reagan • I say RIGHTS, for such they have, undoubtedly, antecedent to all earthly government; Rights, that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws; Rights, derived from the great Legislator of the universe. – John Adams

Individual Rights • Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: first, a right to life; secondly, to liberty; thirdly to property; together with the right to support and defend them…… – Samuel Adams • The world runs on individuals pursuing their self-interests. – Milton Friedman • In democratic society each citizen is habitually busy with the contemplation of a very petty object, which is himself. – Alexis de Tocqueville

Freedom and Liberty • They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety – Benjamin Franklin • Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. – Milton Friedman • Nothing is more wonderful than the art of being free, but nothing is harder to learn how to use than freedom. – Alexis de Tocqueville

Equality • Even the striving for equality by means of a directed economy can result only in an officially enforced inequality. – Friedrich Hayek • ……notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude. – Alexis de Tocqueville • A claim for equality of material position can be met only by a government with totalitarian powers. – Friedrich Hayek

The Free Market • If we are not to destroy individual freedom, competition must be left to function unobstructed. – Friedrich Hayek • [Socialists] believe that our economic life …… should substitute “economic planning” for the competitive system. – Friedrich Hayek • The most important single central fact about a free market is that no exchange takes place unless both parties’ benefit. – Milton Friedman

Tyranny • All men having power ought to be distrusted...... – James Madison

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• If the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people……must……take such measures to redress the injury done to the Constitution…... – Alexander Hamilton • The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing. – John Adams

Peace through Strength • Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong. – Ronald Reagan • Peace is not absence of conflict; it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means. – Ronald Reagan • We cannot play innocents abroad in a world that is not innocent. – Ronald Reagan

The Rule of Law • ……Rule of Law – Stripped of technicalities this means that government in all its actions is bound by rules fixed and announced beforehand – rules that make it possible to foresee with fair certainty how the authority will use its coercive powers …… - Friedrich Hayek • They define a republic to be a government of laws, and not of men. – John Adams • We must reject the idea that every time a law’s broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker……each individual is accountable…… – Ronald Reagan

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